The Sword Never Sleeps

Chapter 21

Drathar hadn't had magic to hurl for all that long. Oh, he'd always known from the tinglings when he was near a spell being cast or when walking through the roiling aftermath of a spell battle that he'd had a touch of the Art. Yet he'd been a thief, and no more than a thief, before he'd found the Qaethur.

It had been the Qaethur, a worn and chipped gemstone carved into a shallow relief depiction of a human face, that barely filled his palm, that had whispered to him, opening up a door in his mind to the glory of the Weave. Unthinking and eternal, the Qaethur spoke the same things to everyone who touched it. He had been one of the lucky few.

He had Varandrar to thank for that. The senior Zhent in Arabel had sent him to do that slaying and robbery, had known the Qaethur was there for the taking, and had specifically mentioned it to Drathar. Varandrar had meant him to find it.

The bastard.

Now he had power few thieves could do more than dream of and the riches that power had let him wresr from others. Now he was truly someone worthy among the Zhentarim, not a mere tolerated lackey.

And now, he knew as much as many in the Brotherhood did and so knew something else: true fear.

His spells were too paltry and fresh-learned for him to battle any but the greenest wizard, Art against Art, and hope to live. Yet he had a talent for the spells that called and coerced beasts to his bidding.

Which is why the Knights of Myth Drannor were soon going to be facing a gray render.

"Soon" as in very shortly after it finished tearing apart the joints of the wyvern it had just slain, gnawed the last shreds of meat, and went looking for more to devout to fill up the yawning, gurgling emptiness in its belly.

Riding its mind as lightly and gingerly as possible, Drathar smiled tightly as the horrible rending and splintering of bone went on.

As the old Dale saying put it, his own mother wouldn't know him now.

The hargaunt was spread very thinly across his face-just enough to make him seem a pocked, wrinkled woman who looked nothing like a certain former war wizard. Most of its bulk was busy doing its best to thrust his chest out into a rather impressive, though sagging with age, bust.

The tattered and dirty dress he'd had to strangle the crone he now resembled to gain possession of-hargaunt-disguised as the ornrion Dauntless, he'd intended merely to rob her, but she'd persisted in screaming and trying to blind him with her clawing fingers and everything breakable she could snatch up and throw-was catching on thorns and twigs and the gods alone knew what else as he fought his way through the brush, but what of that?

Torn went with dirty, and dirty suited him. He didn't want to look well-to-do or beautiful enough to make anyone consider him worth waylaying.

Onsler Ruldroun was in a hurry to do a little waylaying of his own.

"Auril's kisses, bur 'tis cold," Pennae murmured nigh Florin's ear, gently pushing aside the tip of his sword from where it had reached out to menace her as she approached. Hunched over and hugging herself for warmth, on the verge of shivering, she tried to thrust herself against his armpit. "There's always a chill before dawn, yes, but this is worse than I've tasted for a long time."

"And if a monster swoops swiftly in at me?" the ranger whispered. "What then?"

"Throw me at it, and use my screams to wake the others. Or use me as a shield."

Florin sighed, put his free arm around her, and started rocking the thief gently back and fotth, shifting weight from one boot to another just as he was, to restore the rhythm he'd established before she'd risen from huddled sleep to join him.

It was cold, and he'd been feeling it.

"Alone I faced the dragon," he muttered to himself, barely above a whisper.

"And lived to tell the tale," she whispered back, her soft breath almost a tune. "And before you think of it, don't bother telling me to go back to sleep. I'm too chilled for slumber. In fact…"

Florin felt deft, iron-strong fingers sliding in under the waist of his breeches, reaching into the warmthHe stepped away. "No. Not now."

Pennae moved back against his chest. "Flor, I'm not after… what you think I am. Right now, at least. I only wanted to get the tips of my fingets a little warmer, and there's always just enough room-"

"Indeed," the ranger growled into her ear in mock disapproval. Then he put his arm around her again and drew her gently back against him to settle into just where she'd been before.

"Who d'you reckon is still after us, now?" she whispered, sliding her fingers a little way back in under his breeches, then bringing them to a firm halt.

Florin shrugged. "Half the stlatning Realms, it seems," he murmured. "To say nothing of Those Who Harp and anyone else who may just be watching what befalls us, rather than hunting us down to do the befalling. I-"

He stiffened suddenly and thrust her away.

"What?" Pennae hissed, seeing his intent face and his rising sword. He was staring tensely out into the night, gaze hard upon something. Yet she hadn't heard a thing.

Trying to look down into the dark forest before them, she stiffened. That was just it.

She, too, couldn't hear a rhing from in front of het. No little night noises, no gentle sighing of ghost-breeze-driven leaves.

Nothing at all.

She could hear those faint forest sounds coming from off to her right-and to the left, too, when she crouched and turned. Yet straight ahead, nothThen she saw it. A movement in the trees, a thrusting that was mirrored by Florin's sword lifting sharply in response beside her.

Something large was approaching through the night-gloom. Something that was tearing aside trees and trampling down bushes and saplings in the heart of that eerie silence.

It was massive-a great, gray, neckless, hulk of stonelike hide and tippling muscle, reaching out with two huge black-taloned, manlike arms so long that they dragged knuckles through the brush whenever they weren't reaching up to claw aside a tree trunk. It was shouldering through a thick stand of trees to reach their ledge, lumbering along heavily, massive shoulders and that bony snout that thrust forward from between the shoulders rather than rising above them on any sort of neck.

Florin cutsed softly, then told Pennae, "Wake the others now, in case its silence comes right up here onto the ledge with it. Not Jhess, but stand over her, ready to kick het awake or drag her aside if you have to."

The thief nodded, staring at black fangs jutting out of large, parted jaws, as the snout lifted to better peer in their direction. A line of three small, amber yellow eyes ran down each side of its bone-ridged head and beheld her with dull, hungry malice. Or was it merely hunger?

Drathar winced. The render's hunger was quickening, and that made its mind a flaring, roiling thing that threatened to draw him in. He didn't want to end up lost in that hunger-driven flood.

He was too good, mayhap, at this beast-coercing. Best to hang back farther. He'd intended to, anyhail, to keep well away from the thief's hurled daggers. The mindlink would tell him when it was feeding. There would be time enough when the real battle was over to skulk in closer and see how matters lay.

He'd cast silence on the creature to cloak its approach. That would have to be cleverness enough. Else he'd be striding along after it, bloodying his fingers on trees, presenting himself as ready meat for anything bold enough to get close to a feeding gray render.

Which would have to be something so bold, he wouldn't want to face it at the best of times.

"Tempus, Tymora, and doom," Islif muttered, managing to look angry and sleepy at the same time. "I don't like the chances of my sword being able to carve that. D'you think there are any loose shards of rock up atop this cliff you could climb up and shove down onto its head?"

Pennae shrugged. "I saw some deep clefts up there, with greenery doing the lush tumble down out of them. Whether I can get anything free in time is another thing. I'll take that battlehammer Semoor lugs with him but never wants to use and see what I can do-but mind, falling stone really doesn't care if it hits ugly monster or valiant Knight of Myth Drannor."

"Pennae," Islif replied, "We're too desperate to worry about that. Get climbing."

The thief nodded, turned away, and starred up the weathered stone as if it were a well-lit ladder.

Islif wondered what Pennae would do if there were other forest prowlers waiting for her with bared and grinning fangs at the top of the cliff.

Then she wondered if the thief had alreadv stolen the Pendant and, upon reaching the top of the cliff, would just sidle off through the trees, leaving the rest of them to a swift and bloody doom.

Then, joining Florin and a reelingly sleepy Doust and Semoor in a line along the ledge, she wondered if she'd have time to even know what was killing them, before it did.

What must be magical silence was ebbing as the hulking thing clawed its way up the gravel slope. She could hear faint clackings and rattlings as stones tumbled in a constant, growing flood.

Rolling over those sounds, she could hear something else-a deep, wet rumbling, like a dog growling deep in its throat. The thing was large-half again as tall as she was, its shoulders far broader than hers. Hairless and seemingly sexless, it stood upon squat, massive legs and had a stumpy little flap of a tail. There'd be a channel beneath that tail where it relieved itself. That and its pale, wet maw and the eyes-six of them-were the only vulnerable spots she could see.

Shaking her head, Islif wondered if she'd be able to reach any of them and if they really were weaknesses her blade could pierce.

Ar least she had time to ponder such things, as a little gravel showered and bounced down from above, marking Pennae's climb. This beast was digging into the loose stones below theit ledge more than it was managing to climb them.

Yet there had to be solid rock or sturdy earth under all the rocks, pebbles, and gravel, if one went deep enough. It would only be a matter of time.

"Can we try to blind it, d'you think?" Florin asked. "Before it gets up here with us? Pennae?"

"She's gone," Islif said, not knowing if the thing could hear and understand them. "Up. So depend upon no cleverly thrown daggers to help us."

"Both of you should be able to reach the eyes with your blades, if standing right beside it," Semoor muttered. "If it doesn't stand up tall, that is, and all the shifting stone doesn't just slide you on past." It was obvious who "both of you" were meant to be.

"If we get down onto that loose stuff," Florin murmured, "can we get up here again?"

"Can we stand up to fight it at all?" Islif asked. "I'm not welcoming the thought of wallowing, scarce able to land a sword cut, and ending up sprawled flat in the scree, sliding helplessly down to its legs as it digs and churns, so it can reach out and break my back- or claw me up to dine-whenever it pleases."

"We could try to reach out and haul you back," Semoor suggested, eyeing those black-fanged jaws. The beast was clearly watching them, turning its head to regard each Knight in turn, and its rumbling was rising in tone and volume. It sounded angry.

Islif and Florin both shook their heads.

"That'll just mean you get hauled helplessly into the same doom as ours," Islif said.

Florin sighed and fixed both priests with stern looks. "No holy magic that can help now, at all?"

Doust and Semoor gave each other uneasy looks then shook their heads in unison. The ranger sighed then ducked down until he was half-kneeling-and sptang.

Off the ledge and forward, sword out. Those great, black-taloned arms swung up to claw at him but succeeded only in coming up under one of his boots and lofting him the extra bit he needed, not only to land on the beast's massive back just behind the eyes, but to turn in midair, so he came down facing rhe ledge and his fellow Knights.

Florin drove his sword sideways into the angle of the jaws. As he'd expected, the monster bit down hard on it, making it into a rock-solid handle for the next breath or two. Which was quite long enough for the ranger to use his other hand to snatch out a belt dagger and bury it hilt-deep in one of the beast's eyes.

It stiffened, then roared in pain and threw up its arms, rising out of its crouch. By then, Florin had yanked his dagger messily free of one eyesocket and plunged the steel into the next one.

The monster roared and reached up with one arm to claw him forward over its head and down into its waiting jaws-and Islif's sword slashed across its talons, severing or blunting them all and causing it to squall in astonished pain. It shook that hand wildly, seeking to banish the pain, which was more than long enough for the ranger riding it to plunge his dagger into the third eye on that side of the monster's head.

It stiffened again, then spasmed, wriggling wildly and uncontrollably beneath him. Florin clung to blade and dagger, fighting just to stay on its back-as Islif snarled to Semoor, "The big skillet, on edge, between its jaws!"

The priest blinked at her, then tore apart his pack and produced the pan. Islif snatched it, drove it in between those black teeth- and then lunged so deeply that her armored shoulder fetched up beside the skillet with a clang. Which meant her sword was arm-deep in the beast's maw but angled up into its massive shoulders and spine, piercing and now slicing and slashing viciously.

The monster reeled, flung up its arms to tear the swordswoman apart-and Doust and Semoor launched themselves from the ledge, maces smashing down on the monster's hands with all their weight backing the blows.

The monster staggered back, arms flailing, the rumbling now a bellow of raw agony, and Florin dared to dtive his fingers into one gore-weeping eyesocket to gain a handhold to cling to. He let go his swotd and used that hand to thrust the dagger into the first of the three eyes on the other side of the head.

The massive shoulders under Florin were shaking and spasming helplessly now, the arms flailing around in a wild thrashing.

"Get clear!" Pennae cried from above. "Flor, get away from it!"

Florin slashed open another eye, even as he kicked hard against the thing's back, and thrust himself free, toppling back into the night.

The thing tried to turn, to follow him and pounce, but it was lurching, its muscles rippling and shuddering uncontrollably. It had managed only a half-turn by the time Islif and the two priests had clawed themselves well apart from where it thrashed on the scree slope-and a long, wedge-shaped slab of rock came thundering down out of the night to smash the beast flat.

Broken and bewildered, all it could still do was scream. It did that, feebly, then fell silent and leaked gore out from under the now-shattered stone covering it.

"Well, now," Pennae's voice floated down to her fellow Knights, surprisingly calm and quiet. "That wasn't so hard, was it? Any other beasts you need taken care of?"

"Whoever sent this one?" Semoor said. "Four coins to get twelve that this hulk was brought or sent here to stand against us."

No one accepted his wager.

Which one of them had the Pendant? As he'd expected, his spell had found nothing, which meant he had to get closer to either spot it by chance-if one of them was foolish enough to wear it openly-or spell-see it at close range.

Drathar skulked closer, wincing as the render's rumblings rose into sharp shrieks. The night was dark, the Knights apparently had no lanterns lit.

Well, that just might seal their doom. They couldn't" Haaaa!" That deep, hoarse, triumphant roar out of the night had sounded right behind him!

Drathar hurled himself forward, right through a viciously sharp thornbush that was thankfully half-dead, and so collapsed with a crackle. Who-?

A morningstar crashed down right beside him, flaring momentarily into ruby radiance as it struck his feeble shielding spell.

Drathar rolled, becoming aware of a large, looming figure, a choking stink of unwashed, filthy flesh, and two tusked heads. A second morningstar whistled past his head to thud heavily into a treetrunk and rebound.

Drathar scrambled to his feet then ducked away, seeking to put several trees between himself and this… ettin?

Aye, it was a two-headed giant, and it was striding angrily around the trees, looking nothing like the stumbling dunderheads most bardic tales insisted ettin were. It looked to have just awakened, probably roused by the render's screams, and its every stride was faster and more purposeful as it rose to full alertness.

Which meant he had to act right now-or never.

Drathar planted his feet despite the wildly rising urge to flee, stared at the ettin lurching menacingly nearer, and carefully cast his last coercion spell. Whatever they'd managed to do to the gray render, the Knights of Myth Drannor had to be wounded and weary.

Which meant, against an ettin, they hadn't a chance. ***** "What was that magic?"

Boarblade was in no mood for Klarn's truculent questions just now. "Something the same man who contacted each of you gave me, to use once we were together, riding on an open road. I don't know its name. You saw what it did to the horses, and it's done now. So leave them-they're too exhausted to stray, and the hargaunt can smell them well enough to guide us back to them, aftet. Come!"

"Come where?"

"Into the woods, toward all that shrieking. Before we're too late. You to the fore with me. Glays, rearguard. All the shrieking may bring other things hunting. Thorm and Darratur, keep blades sheathed for now. I want none of us running onto each other's steel in the dark. Quick and quier, quick and quiet."

"To do what, exactly?"

Glays was always calm and the only one Boarblade judged competent to obey orders and avoid utter dundetheadedness. So he answered the man.

"To go and see if this racket is linked to the Knights we're looking for. It sounds like a forest beast might just have done our work for us-and if it has we need to get to the bodies before it mauls their faces too badly and to find that Pendant before it's down some monster's gullet. If it hasn't, but the Knights are sore wounded or worn out, we watch and choose our best moment to rush them. They've got a wizard and some priests, remember? No better time and place to face down spells than the dark, in a thick forest, where they can't see who they're hurling magic at. If, that is, they've got any magic left!"

That set Klarn, Thorm, and Darratur all to nodding and chuckling. Boarblade used his drawn sword to wave Klarn forward, gave them all a gtin, then turned away before they could see it fall right off his chin. Idiots.

In the dootway the Royal Magician of Cormyr came to an abrupt halt and blinked.

Sage Royal Alaphondar looked up from his uncomfortable, high-backed chair and sighed. There were more subtle ways of making it clear you were surprised-and disapprovingly so-to see someone in attendance at a secret meeting in the Queen's Retiring Room, but then Vangerdahast seldom saw any need to be all that subtle.

King Azoun and Queen Filfaeril were there, of course, crowns off on the table before them and arms around each other like lovers, as a clear signal that royal protocol was suspended for the nonce. Laspeera of the Wizards of War sat near them on a maid's ready chair.

The two whose presence seemed to discomfit Vangey were the War Wizard Lorbryn Deltalon and the man sitting quietly next to him in drab and well-worn trail leathers on the couch. It was the Harper. Dalonder Ree, and he was giving the simmering wizard in the doorway a knowing smile and the words, "I'm sorry to announce that Dove can't be with us. She's off on one of her jaunts. Harper work."

"What Harper work?" Vangerdahast almost snarled, striding into the room and making for the comfortable armchair that had been left for him.

Ree shrugged. "What I know not, I cannot be made to say." "Hah! You expect me to believe that?"

"Yes, "King Azoun said from where he sat, the word so sudden and steely that Vangerdahast blinked again, halted, and waited for more. Anticipated words that did not come.

After a breath or two, the Royal Magician continued to his seat and told the ceiling as he turned to sit, "Word came to me that the Dragon Queen had need of my presence at a moot, wherefore I am here. Do we await later arrivals, or-?"

"We do not, Vangey. Your grand entrance is unmarred." Filfaeril's tone was as dry as the sands of a deserr. "If you're sitting comfortably enough, we can begin."

"I am. The purpose of this little conclave?"

"Thrust to the heart, thrust to the heart," Dalonder Ree murmured. The Royal Magician did not deign to look in his direction, but Laspeera and Filfaeril both gave him sly little smiles.

"It appears," the King of Cormyr said calmly, "that the Knights of Myth Drannor continue to be embroiled in some manner of violence in the wilderlands along the Moonsea Ride, beyond our present borders but in territory we customarily patrol and secure so that no menace may gather there for forays into our fair realm. The identities of their foes are a matter of some conjecture and dispute. I would hear your honest and informal counsel, everyone, on what we should now do about this."

"Nothing," Vangerdahast said, as Deltalon and the Harper started to speak. "They are adventurers, and they have departed the realm. Let them adventure and taste whatever fates the gods see fit to hand them. We cannot be forever reaching out our hands across Faerun to meddle in the affairs of others."

"No, of course not," Dalonder Ree told the ceiling. "Only twice or thrice a day, when we want to-if we happen to be, say, a Royal Magician."

Two royal snorts of mirth quelled the icy rejoinder Vangerdahast had turned his head to deliver. He satisfied himself by ignoring the Harper's comment and said, "In this room we can only concern ourselves with Cormyrean interests and policies. As this is an informal discussion, let me express myself bluntly: I am very strongly of the opinion that no further aid of any sort should be rendered to the chartered adventurers known as the Knights of Myth Drannor. If they establish themselves in Shadowdale, as certain parties obviously intend that they do, we shall then extend the hand of diplomacy-"

"Envoys in the front door, spies through the back," Ree murmured.

"— as usual," Vangerdahast said, giving the Harper a glare. "For one thing, I want to keep Wizards of War clear of that atea just now for quite another reason."

Into the little silence that followed, Queen Filfaeril asked quietly, "And that reason would be?"

Vangerdahast looked at her a little beseechingly and murmured, "It touches on the royal family, and I would prefer not to speak openly in present company."

"That's difficult, Vangey," King Azoun said, "because I would very much prefer that you do."

The Royal Magician did not trouble to- hide his shrug or his sigh. "Very well. There is peril to the Princess Tanalasta, owing to a magical link between her mind and a Wizard of War who has now become a renegade and a fugitive, whom I believe to currently be in the same area as the Knights."

"Ruldroun," Laspeera murmured.

Vangerdahast gave her a glare. "If we're laying bare every last secret of the realm for no good reason, aye. Ruldroun is the mage I speak of. I don't know of any connection at all between him and the Knights, but if we flood that stretch of forest with war wizards and spells get hurled… well, what happens to his mind could harm the princess, no matter what safeguards I weave around her here."

"I have no magic to speak of," the Harper said, "so I see no reason I shouldn't go to the aid of the Knights. I would even be so bold as to request war wizard aid in translocating me across the vastness of fair Cormyr so I can reach them in good time."

"I will furnish that," Deltalon spoke up, "and accompany you to assist and to bring back reliable report of what befalls."

"You will not." Vangerdahast could put a ring of steel into his voice that echoed louder and more forcefully than even the "hear now my royal will" tone of King Azoun.

"He will," Queen Filfaeril said so softly and calmly that she seemed almost to be whispering. "Vangey, in this you are overruled."

The Royal Magician reeled in his chair as if he'd been slapped across the face. "You-you-"

"Dare?" the Dragon Queen inquired sweetly. "Of course. And please try my royal husband before you deem me foolish or standing alone in this."

With slow and obvious reluctance, Vangerdahast turned his head to look at the king, who smiled, nodded, and said, "The Harper is to be given all the assistance he deems necessary-including the service of Wizard of War Deltalon."

"I shall see to that," Laspeera said softly.

Vangerdahast's gaze snapped around to her-but he gave her no glare, only silence and several blinks of his eyes, as if some sort of facial tic were afflicting him.

"Very well," he said at last. "But hear me!" He gave the Harper a glare that might have melted a shield. "You're not taking an army of Purple Dragons!"

"Why would I," the Harper's face was all innocence, "when all I need is one Dragon? The man called Dauntless."

Slowly at first, then uproariously until his mirth expired in a fit of choking, the Royal Magician of Cormyr laughed.